CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“So, this is your new room as well as mine. I still can’t believe we had Ben assigned to be roommates! What terrible luck!” Tiffany squealed before dragging Alyssa to her side to the room.
Alyssa sighed and shook her head.
She was still a bit sceptical about why she and Tiffany had been made roommates and why she had been assigned under Tiffany with chores duty.
She didn’t want to think to much into the things but she just could trust things went this smoothly without someone pulling the strings.
The head maid had just approached Tiffany and asked her to get Alyssa familiar with things. She had also asked Tiffany to share her room with her.
Alyssa shook her head to remove all those thoughts. She didn’t have time for over thinking things because she knew that although she was just undercover to aid her ploy of getting information, she actually had work to do.
All the new recruits had been given today to rest but not after familiarizing themselves with the while palace lest they wandered into a wrong place.
She place her things on her bed before picking the uniform that had been placed there for her.
She knew that she was treated like a maid all her life but wearing this uniform further solidified her position as a maid. She didn’t care though because as she thought back to all the constrictions that cane with being a princess, she preferred to be a normal maid.
Tiffany had rambled excitedly for a while before excusing herself. she and said that she was going to be back and that she had to finish a particular chore she abandoned to accompany Alyssa.
Alyssa had chuckled as she thought that it was so Tiffany. Who knew she had work pending yet she accompanied her all day like she was free.
Tiffany had scurried off leaving Alyssa to her thoughts.
She dropped the uniform before sitting on the bed.
She glanced around the room properly for the first time since she had entered. The room was way bigger than that of her room back at Western Kingdom. It was even more luxurious than the new room she had been assigned to stay when Lucas had arrived at palace back then. Even the bed was softer than hers back then.
This just went on to show that magnificence that Venice held as a kingdom.
Sometimes, she wondered what that so called wealth blessing artifact looked like. Why was it that it was so difficult to name that the ancestors came up with such a weird name?
She was really curious as to what it would look like.
Maybe, when she saw it, she could try naming it better.
She chuckled to herself.
She sighed as she laid on the bed and stared at t ceiling. She seemed to be doing that more often as of late.
She felt really tired bit she knew that she couldn’t sleep yet as she needed to go on that tour. So, in order to keep herself busy, she picked up the uniform she had tossed aside and wore it.
Soon she stood in front of the mirror as she checked out the uniform. She wouldn’t lie to herself, it oddly did compliment her body.
She had never been one to subjugate herself to self depreciating thoughts. She knew she was beautiful and that fueled her confidence. It was just that once you had grown up being the subject of abuse, perverted thoughts and sexual assault in form of groping, you would put very little effort into your looks.
As she was staring at the mirror, the door opened and Tiffany walked in.
She stopped short once she saw Alyssa in her uniform.
“Wow! You really are beautiful, Alyssa. The common maid uniform didn’t even reduce your beauty a tiny bit” Tiffany exclaimed.
Alyssa stared at Tiffany and after seeing the genuineness in her eyes, her cheeks couldn’t help but colour a bit.
“Thank you” she replied.
“So, how about that tour!”
…..
Soon they were done with the tour and Alyssa was sure that she was familiar with about seventy percent of the palace. The palace was so big so she couldn’t say she remembered everything but she sure was going to in the nearest future.
She followed Tiffany to the kitchen where she was working just to accompany her but somehow got pulled into doing the dishes.
She was a maid after all, so even though they had informed the new recruits to rest for that day, she couldn’t refuse. She could only she as she washed a tall pike of plates while Tiffany cleaned.
All through, Tiffany kept shooting her looks of apologies but she just smiled at her to assure her that she wasn’t bothered.
She was used to doing chores like these so this didn’t even bother her the slightest bit.
After a day of hard work and persistence, they were done.
They both retired to their rooms for the night and slumped on the bed.
They both still weren’t feeling sleepy after a while so they just figured that they would talk.
Somehow the conversation, drifted towards their families as well as their backgrounds.
Alyssa felt danger but she couldn’t stop Tiffany from explaining her family background and how she came to be here.
“Well, I don’t really remember my family because the memories have become fragmented for some reason. I just remember that they loved me to bits and I was their one and only princess. I weirdly don’t remember any of their faces but I remember what happened the night my family left me. I think I was five then but I can barely remember at this point. I was sleeping like I normally did, and then the next moment, I was being carried. Screams and chaos resonated around me but all I could focus on was the pair of cold yet oddly warm arms that were wrapped around me. The person kept saying something to me while rubbing my back soothingly. The next thing I knew was that I was shoved in a secret room and then darkness enveloped me. I heard screams and smelt blood but I oddly still didn’t move. It was like I was in a daze as I sat there staring into the darkness. After what seemed like hours, the sounds stopped totally till all I could hear was my own breathing as well as the sound of my heartbeat. Like my body was being controlled, I stood up and walked out of the dark room. Immediately I was out in the open, the pungent smell of death and blood assailed my nose. I walked aimlessly till I was standing in a room with piles of undecipherable bodies strewn all around. I knew that those bodies were my family but oddly, I didn’t feel anything as I stared at them. I soon collapsed and woke up in the woods. When I observed my surrounding, I saw that a huge bonfire was being set. It seemed that they were going to burn the bodies and that I had been mistaken for dead. No one was present there so I snuck away and wondered off into the wild. Days of wondering had me arriving in Venice. Here, I was adopted by a kind old lady who raised me till I was eighteen. She soon died and after that, I worked from one dead end job to another. It was at the beginning of this year I stumbled upon this job. I applied and much to my luck, I was able to get in. That’s my story.” Tiffany narrated while staring at the ceiling
Silence enveloped the room as there was a tense mood in the air.
Alyssa felt really bad for what Tiffany had to go through. Her heart went out to the little girl whose family was massacred before her.
“Tiff… I ” Alyssa started but was cut off by Tiffany.
“Alyssa, Can I ask you about your family? Mine is just so sad and I don’t wanna keep talking about it.” Tiffany begged as she audibly sniffed.
It was obvious she was trying to change the subject but it made her even more pitiful.
Soon, the words that Tiffany had said fully registered in Alyssa’s brain. Alarm bells rang out in her head as her brain tried so hard to conjure an excuse to deflect from talking about it.
As she glanced at Tiffany’s forlorn face though, she couldn’t bring herself to give an excuse so she decided she would tell her the truth.
Or at least a half truth.
“My story isn’t as sad as yours so I’m sorry if that will disappoint you” she said in an attempt at dark humor to life the mood.
It seemed to work as Tiffany chuckled before turning to fave her with her glassy grey eyes.
“Its okay Alyssa. I’m sure your story can’t outdo mine anyways so just let’s hear it already”All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.
“Uggh! Bossy much? Fine!” Alyssa joked.
“I don’t even know how to start as I’m an awkward storyteller so I’m just gonna go on and say it. I’m not sure if my family is even a real one at this point. Okay, so basically I’m a product of an affair. I have been told all my life that my mother seduced my father who already had a perfect family and got pregnant for him. It was said she died while giving birth and like the ‘good person’ my father was, he couldn’t abandon me even though it could possibly cause the peril if his family. He took me in and raised me into the fine young lady I am today. That was what he told the outside world though and it was so far from the truth.”
“The truth was that day after day in that wretched house, I was abused. I was turned into a punching bag to release and vent their anger. I was seen as a scorn and an abomination who stained their perfect family. I was whipped, choked, dunked and even almost molested by my stepmother and her two children. I was made to slave away day in and out with only the reward of eating their scraps and leftovers. My father who had been tagged as a good father pretended to be ignorant of what went on under his own roof. I still took it all because I thought I had to pay for my mother’s sin of being a third party in someone else’s marriage but that all changed when I recently found out a very vile secret. My father was drunk one night and he mistook me for my mother’s ghost who had come to kill him. He confessed to me that he had been plagued with guilt all his life for what he had done all those years ago. I had asked him what he did and he confessed that he had raped my mother. He also confessed that he had kidnapped her and kept her under lock and key when he discovered that she was pregnant so no one would discover his secret. He wanted to kill my mother then but at the thought that her baby could possibly be a boy, which he desperately desired, he soared my life back then. After my mother had died from childbirth and given birth, he had no choice but to take me in since news had travelled that he had an affair. He painted my mother as the villain and his his misdeeds.”
“After finding out, I couldn’t bear to stay there anymore. I ran away and wandered till I cane upon Venice. It was my second day in Venice I saw you and I’m grateful for that. I decided to work in the palace because I needed money since the one I stile from home was already running low. And that is how I ended up here. You see, I told you that although my story is pathetic, it can outdo yours.” She finished narrating with a dark chuckle.
She waited for Tiffany to say something but she didn’t, so she turned to see why.
What she saw shocked her to bits.